Well, my mini-vacation is over. And not a moment too soon.
I spent much of it (including Christmas and New Years Day) hanging drywall, taping, mudding, caulking, and painting. By the time yesterday rolled around I was feeling as if I’d been sent to purgatory to spend 1000 years finishing the inside of a closet.
Maybe not 1000 years, but close. I’m still only about half-way done.
You wouldn’t think completing a simple, smallish bedroom would take so long. It’s just a 10-ish x 11-ish box, after all. But it’s that closet that’s the killer. That and all the “interesting” angles.
The closet, though only 3-1/2 feet deep, is longer than the bedroom and has back and side walls that have to be finished both inside and out.
The angles I mentioned include one by-design 45-degree turn on the closet’s corner plus dozens of surprises left over from the work of Jim Beam, Jack Daniel, and 80 years of muddy ground and consequences. (The summer’s aggressive house jacking couldn’t eliminate all the accumulated quirks.)
Today I applied the first coat of paint to the inside of the closet and momentarily felt such satisfaction I forgot I still have to install a ceiling, paint the floor, add crown moldings, add baseboard moldings, and hang shelving. Plus all that and more outside the closet.
Oh well, it’s progress. And it’s looking good. But it still feels like purgatory. Will I meet my goal of being done with the room and moved in by the end of this month? Or instead will I meet Dante and Virgil strolling through on their guided tour?
Even painting closets is a pain. I had an old house in the city and the closets were wall papered and some of the wall paper was coming loose, so I decided to remove it. The wall paper that was coming off was easy, but the wall paper that was still glued in place was a bear to scrape off! I finally got it off and then had to patch what I gouged scraping off the plaster and then paint. It seemed to take me weeks to get done as I was doing it on my days offs from work.
Have you considered creating conditions for a “Safe Room” – preferably to that bedroom or even that closet – before they are totally finished?
It may already be a moot point because of the advanced state of your renovation project (or its cost to-date). So I apologize; but, this idea was only ‘triggered’ in my mind when you mentioned the state of the closet.
In any event, continued good luck with your home and its progress.